Mondays at CHICKS ROCK!

On Mondays I post at CHICKS ROCK!, the blog of The Women's Mosaic. Check out my posts there, too!
The Women's Mosaic is a New York City-based non-profit organization that provides education, inspiration, and motivation for women to rise up and rock the world! The Women's Mosaic unites and empowers women through programs that promote intercultural understanding and personal growth. We are a community of diverse, dynamic women interested in expanding our horizons by creating positive change that can individually and collectively enrich the world.

The Author's Life Cycle

There’s a talk that I give about my experience as a debut author (I call it “My Journey with The Rock and the River”), which is all about the phenomenon I’ve dubbed The Author’s Life Cycle.

The evolution of this presentation was pretty unusual, because the topic they had asked me to present on was “My Journey to the NAACP Image Awards,” which initially gave me the eemy-squeamy feeling of tooting my own horn a little too hard. But as I thought more about it, I realized there actually was an important journey I could speak about. A journey that wasn’t about the award itself (such things are windfall, entirely beyond our personal control), but about my transformation from being a person who wrote a novel once to being a person whose book was out in the world, rapidly gaining attention and reaching new readers every day.

The Author’s Life Cycle is an ongoing process, one that renews itself with each and every book. It’s not singular, or static, or a thing that you move through in a linear fashion, graduating from one stage to the next, never to return. It is practically a living entity that exists alongside you, grows with you and changes with you, always keeping you on your toes. If you’re lucky. If you’re not, it can just as easily spin you into despair or dissolution.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

I. Alone in my room: The exciting, independent creative process of developing your manuscript.
II. Publish me, pretty please: The long road to publication; the queries, rejections, hope and despair.
III. My baby, all grown up: The publication experience; the transition from manuscript to actual book.
IV. Feedback: Receiving reviews, meeting your readers, releasing ownership of your material to your audience.
V. Interfacing and Inspiration: Drawing on new activities and interactions for renewed inspiration.

I have a LOT to say about this journey and its stages (hence the decision to blog), but for now I leave you with this:

Once I began to understand this cycle, it explained so much about the roller coaster of emotions I experienced along with The Rock and the River. The overwhelming, preoccupying joy at one end of the spectrum, down to the deep, unsettling anxiety of feeling overexposed and vulnerable.

It was so hard to talk about all those emotions, especially because I couldn’t figure out who to talk about them to. Friends and family care about my well-being, but they just don’t fully get it. (“You’re published. You’ve arrived. What’s the problem?”) Writer friends got some of it, but because I was one of the first among my inner circle to publish, it was hard sometimes to talk about the ups and downs without feeling like I was bragging about what I’d achieved. (“You’re nervous about talking to your new editor? You mean the editor for your soon-to-be-published novel? Boo, hoo.”) So, I ended up shouldering this mostly alone.

I suspect that says more about me and my own little hang-ups than it does about the people in my life, who have been unfailingly supportive and sympathetic. It’s simply my way of speaking about some of the isolating aspects of authorhood. We start out in our private little worlds, writing up a storm, but there comes a point (somewhere around your first book birthday) where it’s time to step out of our heads and into the world. And it’s so much scarier than putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Turns out, that was the easy part.

That Eeemy-Squeamy Feeling

If you’ve been around literary networking events at all, you’ve probably met those authors who feel it is their mission in life to get everyone to buy their book. Personally. Right here. Why wait? They have copies for sale. They can sign one for you. Personalize it. Give you a plastic bag, and a bookmark, and sign you up on their mailing list, for which you’ll receive an additional bag and bookmark once you’ve recommended their book to someone else or written a compelling blog post extolling its virtues. You know you want one. Come on. Please?

Arrrgh. The only thing worse than having to dodge a persistent self-promoter is dealing with the fear that you, too, come across as an aggressive, egotistical maniac whose book can’t possibly be any good if she’s having to push it so hard.

So, where is the line between assertiveness and aggression when it comes to promoting your own work? It’s so easy to see when other people cross it—why is it so difficult to see this line in relation to yourself?

The bad news is, you can never really see it. The line moves, depending on so many factors—the setting, what your intentions are, the mood of your conversation partner, their perception of you. (Notice—the list includes things that are wholly out of your control.) But do not lose faith, my dears, because here’s the good news: if you feel slightly embarrassed by self-promotion, you definitely have the self-regulatory instincts that keep you from coming across as a crazy. Whew.

Because we fear being perceived badly, most writers actually fall into the category of not being assertive enough when it comes to self-promotion. I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought to myself, “I really want to tell Person X about my book. Is that going to seem weird? Is it too forward of me?” Never mind how much we love our work, we don’t feel socially permitted to say so. (More on this later.) Thus, the anxiety of worrying about how we’ll come across collides with the anxiety of desperately wanting to talk about our work, which drives us toward a deeper existential anxiety, and the vicious cycle continues.

There’s no perfect formula. You have to feel it out. But I do have some thoughts on different levels of self-promotion, and where each might be appropriate. For example, you can be much more forward with an industry professional in a networking setting (like at a conference) than you can if you meet at a mutual friend’s wedding.

The bottom line is this: in order to be an effective self-promoter, you have to get comfortable with confronting the eeemy-squeamy feeling of Am I making this too much about me?

And then you’ve gotta just go out and do it.

Book Trailer Discoveries

Excuse me while I take a moment to extoll the wonder that is YouTube:

"YouTube is awesome!" (Okay, I'm done.)

I never used to go on there, and in retrospect I don't understand how it eluded me for so long, but recently I've become much more proficient at surfing for videos. As a result, I have found the following:



I LOVE book trailers. I've always wanted to create one for The Rock and the River, but I never quite got the hang of gathering photos and setting it to music and such. I am now inspired to try one for Camo Girl or Fire in the Streets, the ROCK sequel that is coming out in 2012.

Thanks very much to the person who made this. I couldn't tell his/her name (apparently I'm not that YouTube-proficient yet) but I really enjoyed the end product here and I appreciate the time and effort someone took to create this for the book.

And then I found another one, by Robyn Young:



Thanks, Robyn! It looks great.

Mondays at CHICKS ROCK!

On Mondays I post at CHICKS ROCK!, the blog of The Women's Mosaic. Check out my posts there, too!
The Women's Mosaic is a New York City-based non-profit organization that provides education, inspiration, and motivation for women to rise up and rock the world! The Women's Mosaic unites and empowers women through programs that promote intercultural understanding and personal growth. We are a community of diverse, dynamic women interested in expanding our horizons by creating positive change that can individually and collectively enrich the world.

Starting the Journey

The genesis for my new blog focus is somewhat sprawling. It’s taken me a long time to figure out what I want to say about the real world (fiction comes easy). But I like to think that when a course of action is the right fit, there will be multiple paths leading you to it. Even if you make some strange choices along the way, if you’re paying close attention those paths will wind you right back to where you’re supposed to be going.

I started thinking about “the author’s journey” about a year ago, during a period of time when I found myself answering lots of questions from debut authors. Questions like:

How do I prepare for a school visit? How much do I need to self-promote? How do you deal with a bad review? How important is a blog, and do I have to get on Twitter? How do I explain to my friends that writing is a real job, not just a hobby? What kinds of questions are my readers likely to ask? Where can I order cheap bookmarks? I’m dying to see my book on a bookstore shelf--how do I get bookstores to carry it? Will it ever stop being really cool to see my book on a bookstore shelf?

I could never purport myself to be a true authority on any of these things, but I found that I had answers to the questions, and a perspective to share based on my experiences. It seemed to be helpful to people. And I wanted to continue talking, because it felt reassuring to know that the years of struggle since my debut novel sold might actually be relevant to someone other than me. In other words, I’m starting to feel a lot less alone in the world, and the best thing I can think to do with that feeling is to share it.

I found this video of myself at an SCBWI conference almost two years ago, and it pretty much sums up my feelings…

…even though I didn’t immediately recognize the full meaning of what I was trying to express. At the time, it was one of my first video appearances, and I was just happy that I didn’t come across looking or sounding like a total idiot!

Many paths, same destination.

Cynsational Me

My guest post was featured yesterday on Cynsations, author Cynthia Leitich Smith's awesome all-things-kidlit blog.

I blogged about my inspirations for writing Camo Girl, my novel about friendship and fitting in in middle school.

Camo Girl deals with some hot-button issues of the day, like bullying, but mainly it is about learning to recognize real friendship and accepting yourself even when you are different from everyone around you.

Here's a teaser from my guest post.:

What’s your inspiration?” is a question that most authors I know get asked a lot—by friends, by child readers, by fellow writers.

Like most authors (I suspect), I’ve developed semi-canned answers to this question—answers which are based on truth, but which always leave me feeling a bit squirmy. I never can get to the bottom of something as unwieldy as my inspiration in a sound bite...."

...which is why I had to write an entire article about it. Read the rest here.

New Year, New Directions

Okay, so it isn't the new year yet, but I can't believe how fast the summer disappeared, and how quickly the fall seems to be getting chomped up, too. It's already mid-October (eek!) and I'm sure I'll be dragging out my snowboots and singing Auld Lang Syne much sooner than I can possibly imagine.

So, I just wanted to share a quick update about some changes that I'm planning and some new ideas that I'm forming about my online presence. In short: I need to step it up a notch! I started this blog when my first book was published, believing that it would be a good way to keep people informed of my activities. It is, but I've felt for a while now that I can't be an effective blogger until I find a focus and direction for my posts that is larger than myself and more content-rich than simple self-promotion.

Happy news: After only three years, I finally figured out what I want to blog about! Hooray!

The new focus for my blog (as yet untitled) is going to be the author's journey. I'll share my reflections on the experience of transitioning from being a person who aspires to publish, to a person with a book contract in hand, to a person who is a published author, especially focusing on all the steps along the journey from being a debut novelist to being an established and successful author. Writers view publication as the epitome of success, but there's also a profound personal and professional journey that begins when you get your first contract. Sometimes it feels like you've been thrust into no-man's-land, and we don't talk enough about how to negotiate the "after." I hope this blog can become a gathering place for authors to share their experiences and struggles (personal and professional) as well as a place to welcome debut writers into the fold with resources, advice and support that will help them get off to a great start.

I'm updating my website design now, and it will all launch in January, so I'll do some cross-posting at that time and try to drum up new traffic and start a broader conversation. In the meantime, for the benefit of my few but faithful followers, I'm going to be posting some initial material on these topics so that when the brand new blog (yay!) goes live, I'll already have some things posted for people to look at.

Basically, this is a warning to my existing fans (you are few, but you are loyal!): Don't freak out when I start posting more than once a week! I truly hope you'll join me when I move to the new and improved keklamagoon.com, and that you'll add your insights to the conversation there.

Image: Pixomar / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Mondays at CHICKS ROCK!

On Mondays I post at CHICKS ROCK!, the blog of The Women's Mosaic. Check out my posts there, too!
The Women's Mosaic is a New York City-based non-profit organization that provides education, inspiration, and motivation for women to rise up and rock the world! The Women's Mosaic unites and empowers women through programs that promote intercultural understanding and personal growth. We are a community of diverse, dynamic women interested in expanding our horizons by creating positive change that can individually and collectively enrich the world.